


we can talk about the weather

by sullypants



Series: a comic miniverse [4]
Category: Archie Comics
Genre: F/M, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullypants/pseuds/sullypants
Summary: Everyone keeps trying to have a conversation with Jughead that he doesn't want to have.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: a comic miniverse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725463
Comments: 50
Kudos: 157
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	we can talk about the weather

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to raptorlily/hellodinoflower, for both prompting me and letting me talk her ear off.

If Jughead could point to an inciting incident, it might have been the moment his mother and Jellybean arrived home from the grocery store.

Not that she walked in on anything; they were in the kitchen, Betty was simply rolling out a pie crust on the island. Jughead was standing next to her, his torso bent double to lean against the counter, head in hand while Betty did all the work. 

(He knows his talents and he knows Betty’s; who is he to get in the way of his girlfriend’s expertise?

“Explain to me the purpose of pie weights, Betts?”) 

But the kitchen door had swung open and out popped his little sister, who beelined for his girlfriend and hopped right up onto the counter, nearly taking out a jar of flour in the process. She was talking a mile a minute before he even realized what’d happened. 

And so maybe he’d looked a little flustered when his mother walked into the room seconds later, laden with groceries. 

He thinks he’d recovered pretty decently, because he’d taken the bags off his mother’s hands and started to help her put things away, while Jellybean continued to talk Betty’s ear off.

(“Hi, Mrs. Jones!” Betty had managed when Jellybean took a second to breathe.) 

Taking a sleeve of shortbread out of a box and turning to deposit the box itself in the pantry, he’d seen his mother narrow her eyes at him, but it was gone before he could even acknowledge it. 

She was shooing Jellybean off the counter and greeting Betty all in one go, and so he thought maybe she was just annoyed at him for shanghaiing the cookies when they’d barely made it in the door. 

.

But later, after Betty’d left (taking half the pie with her, to both his sadness and understanding of her desire to make it last a little longer, and knowing it wouldn’t in the Jones house) his mother had shown up in his bedroom while he was wrapping up a problem sheet.

(He’d accidentally slept through calculus, but Betty had clued him in to the assignment. _What a girl_ , he thinks.) 

He assumed she was stopping by to say good night, or maybe to take in the state of his room and tell him he lived in a sty, or perhaps to tell him he ought to turn the video game off instead of leaving it on pause while he worked.

He got a little suspicious when she closed the door behind her.

.

Thus followed what Jughead assumes must be the most mortifying forty-five minutes of his life. 

He _knows_ there’s a reason he’s walking around on this earth. He _gets_ the logistics. He _took_ human anatomy and biology, thank you very much. He aced that class. 

What’s more, he knows his parents had whole-ass lives before he was born. They’d been his age once. Rationally, he can comprehend this.

But.

There is a valley, a few mountains, many continents, and several oceans between comprehending and being forced to reckon with the reality that one’s parents are—or at least have at one point (two _points_ , Jughead realizes)—been sexually active humans. 

He just does not want to think about this right now. Not when he’s in high school. Not when he himself is _just_ coming to the realization that girls aren’t...gross, for lack of a better word. 

Or at least, they aren’t any grosser than boys are. 

Or maybe—just that Betty Cooper isn’t gross. 

It’s not really something he’s ever thought about before. 

.

But he’s in it now. He literally cannot escape because his mother is sitting next to him on the foot of his own bed and her hand is on his shoulder and he is trapped.

There is... _extensive_ discussion of _logistics_. Words like _desire_ and _urges_ and (he shudders) _release_ are used. 

He wants to unzip his own skin and step out of it.

.

Eventually, mercifully, it ends.

(Not before he feels he must have inflicted some kind of permanent skin damage to his cheeks, given how consistently flushed they’ve been for a seemingly unheard of length of time.)

He gets it. His mom is just looking out for him. She wants him to be happy, and healthy, and to make good choices. She clearly wants all this for Betty, too, and that’s something he can appreciate and get behind. 

.

He puts it entirely out of his head until it resurges unbidden, at what initially seems a most inopportune moment.

The dark of the parking lot at Pop’s, between Mrs. Cooper’s station wagon and a random Chevy truck, the taste of vanilla milkshake on Betty’s lips, and the warmth of her arms around his neck are all sensations he’s happy to focus on, to get distracted by, and to relish.

He does not want to think of his mother in this moment.

But she strolls right into his brain, taps him (metaphorically-speaking) on the shoulder, winks at him, and strolls right back out the way she came.

Immediately Betty can tell something is off.

She pulls her head back slightly to look up at him, her arms remaining snug around his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” She frowns, and he mimics her expression before he gives himself a mental shake.

“Nothing,” he blinks. “Just got a little distracted.”

Betty smiles up at him. He can feel her thumb trace the curve of his ear and there’s a frisson of something up his spine. 

Suddenly he’s not so distracted any more. Or at least it’s a different distraction, one that feels a little more pleasant. 

When Betty leans back in to kiss him again, his hand moves along her waist toward the small of her back, seemingly of its own volition. 

From there it dips, and before Jughead even realizes what his hand is up to, it has found its way into the back pocket of Betty’s jeans.

And then his traitor of a hand squeezes.

The _sound_ Betty makes into his mouth—he could die having merely _heard_ that sound and he’d feel like life had been fulfilling. Something like a moan or a sigh, Jughead can’t actually tell if it _is_ a sound or some kind of physical vibration that transfers from her to him, they’re pressed so closely together. He has enough sense in him to wonder if _he_ made that sound. It’s impossible to tell. There’s no instant replay in real life.

_That’s too bad_ , Jughead thinks. _That'd be a feature he'd pay extra for_. 

.

Gradually he gets over the shame and thinks he might be able to meet his mother’s eye again over the breakfast table.

He’s ready to put it in the past. 

But.

Veronica Lodge involves herself. And Jughead has never found an instance in which Veronica Lodge got involved to have gone well for him.

.

He is minding his own business at Pop’s, happy as a clam with a burger in his stomach and one more soon to join it, when she slides into the booth with all the haughtiness that only Veronica can bring to something as mundane as sitting in a diner. 

Already he knows this isn’t going to be good.

His suspicions are confirmed when she opens her mouth.

“I witnessed you and Betty getting very PG-13 in the parking lot last week.”

Jughead sighs and places his burger down. He can think of nothing he’d like to be doing less than discussing whatever Veronica Lodge did or did not see in the darkness of a parking lot. What’s more, who’s she to say what she’d seen? He’s ready to deny, deny, deny just to thwart whatever scheme she might be shoring up. 

“I’m sure, Lodge.”

She purses her lips, jabbing her index finger at him in what Jughead can only interpret as an accusatory fashion. 

“Uh-uh, nope,” she tells him, and she seems smug. “You can’t argue with me. You have a tell, Jones.”

Jughead scoffs. She folds her hands on top of the table and leans forward. 

She speaks so softly, it’s almost a whisper. “You put your burger down.”

Jughead feels himself rear back. “What does _that_ mean?” 

Dropping the whisper, Veronica cocks her head to the left. “I know I’m right, and I _did_ see you and our sweet Betty Cooper get rather handsy after curfew on a school night.”

Jughead rolls his eyes, raises a staying hand. “Okay,” he tells her, “first of all: curfew?” He shakes his head in dismissal. “Not even gonna touch that one. Second—”

“Aha!” Veronica’s eyes light up. “But there’s certainly other things you’ll get touchy with, won’t you?” 

“What in god’s name are you even _on_?” He’s beginning to feel a little exasperated. He was having a perfectly decent night before this. 

Veronica leans back and waves her palm flat over the air, as though sweeping away whatever she thinks Jughead is laying down. 

“I could do this all day, Jones,” (Jughead has a momentary thought that this is very honest of her, and thinks she might be serious. It’s hard to read Veronica sometimes.) “But I have a purpose here.”

Refolding her hands on the formica, she looks him dead in the eye when she tells him, “I need you to treat my best friend well.”

This is not what Jughead is expecting.

“It’s one thing to go for a little grope in the Pop’s parking lot, post-date. It’s another thing entirely if you mistreat her in any way, shape, or form. Emotionally or,” she leans forward yet again, narrowing her eyes; Jughead’s reminded uncannily of a hawk, “ _physically_.”

She puts such weight on the word that Jughead, still so fresh from his skin-crawling experience of discussing this very topic with his mother in his (now sadly forever tainted) childhood bedroom, knows she’s not talking about anything other than what he thinks she’s talking about.

He’s speechless. 

It’s one thing to get this sort of overture from his mother; it’s another entirely for it to come from Veronica Lodge: certified spoiled-brat, best friend and (until very recently) nemesis of his very own girlfriend. 

His girlfriend, the one she’d shunted to the side for so many years in the quest of a fickle teenage boy’s affections. 

_This is rich_ , he thinks to himself. 

Before he can summon a counter-argument, Veronica continues and her tack swerves so suddenly he thinks he might have some minor whiplash from trying to keep up with her.

“Listen,” she tells him, quiet once again. “Betty really likes you. I don’t want you to…” her eyes roam the diner like she could pluck the words she needs out of the air, or maybe off the menu. “She really likes you, and you need to treat her well.” Veronica looks at him so openly he feels dumbstruck. “Do you understand?” she asks him.

Jughead has to shake away his confusion, and finds the only way he’s able to respond is with a simple, “Sure. Yeah.”

.

Mercifully ( _maybe there_ is _a god?_ ), Veronica’s the last person in Riverdale to trap him with conversations about safe sex. 

_For the time being_ , he muses. He doesn’t give his luck much credit at this point. 

Betty seems to have heard not a whiff about his confrontation with Veronica, nor about his conversation with his mother. Things between them seem normal.

As much as all of _this_ can be described as normal. Jughead’s never really thought about... _anyone_ the way he finds himself thinking about Betty. 

She pops up in his daydreams—and sometimes his actual dreams—in the oddest of scenarios. 

Sometimes he wonders if he should feel a little bad about it. He’s not sure where any of this is coming from. Betty is, has always been, someone he considers truly wonderful. But now, he begins to notice he’s seeing her...differently. 

Not bad differently. Just... _unexpected_ differently. 

At least, he thinks it’s not bad. 

Until that _thing_ that happens in the deserted offices of the Blue and Gold during their mutual free period.

.

They just happen to be in the middle of... _a moment_ , Jughead decides to label it. 

The grosgrain strap of his watch gets tangled in Betty’s ponytail. He doesn’t even remember putting his hand on the back of her neck, but there it is and well, it’s not the first time he’s gotten lost in the middle of kissing Betty. 

But the _noise_ she makes when his hand moves but doesn’t give, yanking her head backward by the hair; it’s like Pop's parking lot, times ten.

Jughead immediately pulls himself away from her lips with a _sorry sorry sorry_ , moving to untangle his arm from her head. 

He stops dead when he meets her eyes.

It’s...different. 

Her eyes regard him, but they’re hazy and hooded and he’s not sure he’s ever seen _anyone_ look at him that way, let alone Betty. 

Something hooks through his stomach and latches around his spine, and he freezes. He’s not sure if it’s a good feeling or if it’s his body initiating a flight-or-fight response. Something tells him it could go either way. 

Maybe it’s both.

The bell rings before he can figure it out. 

.

He’s still thinking about it when he’s in bed that night.

He decides it’s probably both.

.

It doesn’t come up in conversation. Betty doesn’t ask him about it, and part of him wonders if it’s not as monumental a shift in the time-space continuum for her as it seems to be for him. Maybe she didn’t even notice the world shifting.

Jughead’s used to be the odd man out. He’s weird. He’s okay being the weird one of the group, he embraces it.

But being the iconoclast is lonely when you’re suddenly dealing with...whatever _this_ is.

.

Betty’s giving him a run for his money at Dragoncide VII when his mother appears at his bedroom door.

He’d left the door ajar when they’d plopped themselves onto his bed to engage in this duel. He’d already beaten the game solo, but having someone willing to engage in multiplayer mode seemed too good an opportunity to bypass. And for it to be Betty? Ideal. 

But his mother stops short at the sight of them engaged in fierce battle, splayed out on their stomachs on his bed. 

Betty’s druid goes down, and she's groaning over her failure when she finally notices his mother’s presence. She beams, greets her with a “Hey, Mrs. Jones! Do you need help with that?” indicating the laundry basket on her hip.

“Oh no, Betty; thank you though!” His mother’s eyes swing to him and there’s something canny in her gaze, but Jughead avoids meeting her eye, scrolling through their next battle options. 

“Let me know if you kids need anything, any snacks,” she tells them.

“Thanks!” Betty chimes, and Jughead can hear his mother’s footsteps retreat down the stairs.

Jughead notices she’s left the door open slightly wider.

.

He can’t focus on the game. Betty beats him handily in the next two challenges, before she puts her controller down. She rolls onto her side to face him, props her head in her hand.

Jughead drops his own controller to the floor and rests his head on his folded arms, face turned toward Betty. She narrows her eyes at him.

“What’s on your mind, pal?” She asks him, and reaches her index finger across the bed to poke him in the side. He flinches away from her hand, tries and fails to suppress his smile. It feels okay, though, because his reaction makes Betty smile, too.

For a moment, he considers denying it. Telling her it’s nothing and changing the subject.

But then he realizes—it’s Betty. Why not?

“I had an…” he looks for the word, “interesting conversation with my mother recently.” After a beat he adds, with some disdain, "And _Veronica_."

“Oh?” Betty raises her eyebrows in encouragement. 

He raises his head to rest his chin on his bicep. He inhales deeply.

“It was...well, I think people call it _the Talk_ ,” he tells her.

Betty’s mouth becomes a silent _O_ , and her eyes widen, but there’s a small hint of amusement there, rather than the horror Jughead had anticipated. 

She smiles at him, biting her lip. “And how did that go?”

“Oh, I’m visiting you here from the spectral plane where the dead reside, can’t you tell?” He smiles, delighted when she laughs. 

When she becomes quiet again, she regards him thoughtfully. 

“You hadn’t had that conversation before?” she asks him. He shakes his head.

“Why would I?” He shrugs. “Never really…” he trails off, and Betty nods in understanding.

They're silent for a moment, before: 

“Do you think about that?” Her voice sounds curious, and open. Maybe it's sincere, but all of this is so new that Jughead doesn't know. 

Jughead turns his head back to the tv, where the game menu runs in an endless loop. He rubs his lips together. He’s not sure if he’s stalling or if he’s actually trying to figure out how to respond. 

He decides the truth is probably the best route, and turns back to Betty.

“I’ve not _not_ thought about it.”

She nods. “That’s fair,” she tells him. “I’ve also not _not_ thought about it.”

They’re silent, but Betty keeps his gaze. He’s surprised to find he doesn’t feel the mortification he’d felt when talking with his mother, or with Veronica. Betty’s look is direct, but open. 

_This is okay_ , he realizes. _Feeling unsure about this is okay_. 

“Right now,” he begins, “it’s still just a _thought_.”

She nods. 

“I...think the same,” she tells him.

He nods at her, and she mimics his gesture. He feels her kick his shin gently, and it’s oddly affectionate. 

Her head nods toward the tv screen. “You ready to lose to me here?” 

“Gladly,” he responds. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for reading. xo.
> 
> PS the title is from Litany's "Bedroom."


End file.
